


Stealing Hearts

by PenzyRome



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/F, Fantasy AU, for girlsies week folks!!!, nymph princess!rafaela, theyre gay and in love, thief!joey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 21:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14387340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenzyRome/pseuds/PenzyRome
Summary: Joey had never left the sprawling town she survived in. Then she wandered into the woods and met a princess who had earthly power floating at her fingertips, and surviving became more like living for the first time.





	Stealing Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> this is for girlsies week day 4, any au! of course i had to go with fantasy, because i love it, and i LOVE joey/raf!!

Joey was a thief, and she had been since she was seven. She stole food, medicine, bandages, books, clothes…. anything she needed, or anything that particularly caught her eye. She didn't steal from the poor, and she didn’t steal from people who really needed what she was stealing. But yes, she was a thief, and with it came the role of realist, and pessimist. She’d been dealt a poor hand by life, and she accepted that.

So if you had told her that she would be falling in love with a nymph princess shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she would have laughed in your face.

But Princess Rafaela, who floated a few inches above the ground and wore crowns of branches and leaves and berries and blossoms, worked her way into her heart whenever she snuck away from her palace in the woods to meet Joey by the river and tell her all about the kingdom and her family and her life and her betrothed, a satyr she had nicknamed Mush who was in love with a fairy from the far side of the forest and who she considered her best friend. She worked her way into Joey’s heart despite Joey having closed her heart off years ago, and she made Joey blush with every feather-light kiss that she pressed to Joey’s cheeks as a goodbye. 

She was a tree nymph like her subjects, and in particular, a pine tree nymph, and her eyes were the exact dark green of the needles, and if Joey looked at them too long, she worried that she might faint. She could sneak up on Joey better than anyone else ever could, with her steps that never actually touched the ground, and she thought it was very funny to watch Joey jump out of her skin and scare away the fish she was watching in the slow-moving river. Her hair was dark brown and her skin was a few shades lighter, like the ground when the trees blocked away the sun’s harsher rays, and everything about her seemed soft and glowing and warm. 

And Joey loved everything about her.

She especially loved her lips, and the way they curved up when Joey made a joke, and the way they parted for her to stick her tongue out in retaliation for a teasing jab, and the way they puckered when she frowned. 

And more than anything, she loved the way her lips parted slightly when she leaned forwards and kissed her one day. They stayed that way, Rafaela’s delicate hand cupping her face, for one, two, three golden seconds before Rafaela backed up slowly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “but I can’t do that again.” Before a  _ why not?  _ could tumble off Joey’s lips, she said, “I made a promise to be loyal to Mush. Even if we don’t love each other as we should, I have to keep my promise.”

Joey smiled and nodded, kissing her forehead to reassure her that her friendship was enough for her any day or night, and she sighed at how the corners of those beautiful green eyes crinkled with a smile.

So that was that. They would meet by the river, and they would hover the line between friends and almost something more, and Joey would savor every time that Rafaela’s hand would hover over the small of her back and touch her cheek in fondness. But they would never mention it, they would never mention the obvious strangeness of a nymph princess sneaking out of the palace where she belonged to meet a human thief.

And then one day, Joey waited, wading in the river and looking for rocks that might shine a little brighter, when she heard her name being shrieked. A chill first went down her spine before she registered the joy in the tone, and turned around just as Rafaela slammed into her, knocking her into the sand and the barely-there inch or two of water on the shore.

Joey was about to ask why Rafaela was sitting on top of her and beaming before Rafaela leaned down to crush their lips together, and Joey didn’t bother asking because the only words that came to mind were a resounding happy shrieking. Rafaela backed up just a bit and whooped.

“Mush eloped with his fairy boy! I’m not bound!” She leaned down to kiss her again, and Joey happily complied before Rafaela backed up again, tears in her eyes. 

“I can be with you!”

And Joey could tell from the adoration in her eyes that Rafaela planned on doing just that.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed these lovely lesbians.... i love them a lot!  
> if you want to know what happens afterwards, rafaela becomes queen shortly after, ruling with joey by her side as her wife. mush and blink eloped, obviously, and are traveling the world together. they all live long, happy lives, and raf and joey adopted a lost water nymph girl who became queen after raf.  
> my tumblr is @penzyroamin if you wanna chat or send me prompts or reqs for fics!! comment and ill cry, yall.


End file.
